Life Goes On
by msathenaxf
Summary: A view of life for Quinn, Puck, Finn, and Rachel as they leave high school.
1. Chapter 1

**Title:** Life Goes On

**Author:** msathenaxf

**Disclaimer:** Neither Glee, or any of its characters, belong to me. But I really love them and am borrowing them for my own amusement.

**Author Notes:** For the purpose of this story, I am assuming that Quinn, Finn, and Puck are all seniors in the current season. The others are either juniors or sophomores. I don't think their official grade levels have been mentioned yet.

**Finn**

For five months, he had been a father. Five months of terror and excitement rolled into the already tumultuous life of the average American teenager. As if high school wasn't confusing enough as it was.

And then the truth came out, and it turned out he wasn't a father but his best friend was.

He and Quinn broke up that night and then he broke a knuckle in the fight with Puck. It pissed Finn off to no end that Puck didn't even try to defend himself. Guess he knew how much the beat down was deserved.

The rest of Finn's senior year was painful and awkward and full of a fury that he had never really felt before. One night after glee rehearsal he kissed Rachel. His humiliation was complete when she gently pushed him away. She said that while she understood that he was hurt and angry, she couldn't support him in that way.

Rachel was happy to be his friend but until he had come to terms with this betrayal, he was in no position to begin a relationship. It wouldn't be fair to either of them. Once he was a little calmer, though, she would be more than happy to reassess what they were to each other. However, Finn would also have to accept that she would still be supporting Quinn and Puck through the pregnancy. She was angry, too—everyone was—but glee club was all the young parents had left. And if there was anything that the freaks of glee club understood, it was being alone.

So the rest of high school passed in a blur. Finn ignored his ex-girlfriend and childhood companion with a determination that astounded even Rachel. And with all Mr. Schue's optimism, even he knew not to pair any of them up for duets. Finn focused on getting through each day and looked forward to August 19th—the day he would arrive on campus at Ohio State University.

Then came graduation. He sat in the hard chairs and looked around at his excited classmates. He saw his mom waving to him and snapping photos every chance she got. And when Principal Figgins announced the name of Darcy Ewing, he did his damndest to stare at his shoes. Because he knew who was coming next.

Finn remembered overhearing Brittany say that Quinn's parents were forcing her to walk. Turning in his seat, he sought them out in the audience. They were clapping, looking everywhere but at their daughter who was next in line to receive her diploma. He turned back to his ex-girlfriend; her swollen belly visible even under the loose gown, Quinn's eyes were downcast and she was obviously ashamed of her situation, and hated being up there for everyone to see.

Then when her name was announced, he heard the loudest cheer yet coming from one area of the bleachers. It was beyond him how nine people could make that much noise. Finn assumed it had to do with using the diaphragm, or years worth of cheerleading. And he couldn't help but join in. He watched Quinn waddle across stage, and screamed his heart out. She had made it. And despite how much she hurt him, he was proud of her.

And she heard him. Finn knew she did. Quinn lifted her chin and cried as she accepted her diploma and a hug from Mr. Schuester.

Four days later she went into labor. It was the most crowded birthing room the doctor had ever seen. Puck and Finn held Quinn's hand and the adoptive parents were gathered in another corner, crying and cheering. One of the nurses tried to get Finn to leave, but Quinn's heart rate skyrocketed and he refused to budge.

When it was all over, Finn left them alone to say good-bye to the baby. Quinn offered to let him hold the newborn but he flinched away. He couldn't lose her twice.

But in the end, he had wandered down to the nursery and looked at her through the big window. Rachel met him there and held his hand while he said a silent farewell to the little girl who was, for all intents and purposes, his. He left the hospital and didn't see Puck or Quinn again until the end of summer.

It was Mr. Schuester, of all people, who arrived on his doorstep three days before Finn was set to leave town. This was a surprise for a lot of reasons. Everyone knew that Mr. Schue was going through his own domestic baby drama and, besides, when did teachers ever come to your house?

Finn was still pissed at both Quinn and Puck. He was scared about leaving home. There were so many feelings running through his bloodstream Finn didn't know what to do with them. But Mr. Schuester pointed out that Finn would always regret it if he didn't at least say good-bye to them.

He didn't have to forgive them, didn't have to like them. But he should at least visit them on his way out of town and say good-bye and good luck. There was a very real chance that Finn would never see them again; life could change so much, as he well knew. If for no other reason than to close that chapter of his life, he should at least try to see them one last time.

So, he gave Quinn a lingering hug and placed a soft kiss on her forehead. He wished her luck in school. He stopped short of saying have a good life. It seemed a little too permanent for him and he wasn't quite ready to let go that much. At Puck's, he shared a Coke and watched some of the baseball game. They didn't talk much, except for Puck's awkward apology and Finn's rushed farewell.

And as Finn drove off to a brand new world, they both felt the pain of losing a brother. Because despite everything they had been to each other, Puck and Finn knew that they were only parts of each other's pasts now.


	2. Chapter 2

**Title:** Life Goes On

**Author:** msathenaxf

**Disclaimer:** Neither Glee, or any of its characters, belong to me. But I really love them and am borrowing them for my own amusement.

**Author Notes:** For the purpose of this story, I am assuming that Quinn, Finn, and Puck are all seniors in the current season. The others are either juniors or sophomores. I don't think their official grade levels have been mentioned yet.

**Quinn**

For Valentine's Day, Finn gave her a bouquet of roses and a tender kiss.

In return, she ripped his heart out.

Quinn was nearing the end of her second trimester and the stress of her life and lies was wearing on her. Looking into Finn's loving eyes broke her. She burst into tears and blurted out the truth. Quinn could see the exact moment he understood. The light in his eyes went out and he shut down. All she could do was watch him walk away, sobbing worthless apologies into the night.

It didn't occur to her to call Puck with a warning. When he showed up at her house the next day, sporting a serious black eye and moving more stiffly than he ever had after a football game, she couldn't bring herself to feel bad. If she was going to hurt like this, it seemed only fair that Puck should feel some of it, too.

In the past, she had always pictured him quietly pining over his best friend's girl. It made it easier to put all the blame on him and take none for herself. It was easy to say Puck got her drunk and took advantage. It was easy to forget that he was drunk before she even arrived at the party, easy to ignore the fact that he didn't say wait, and she didn't say stop.

But Quinn had grown up over the past few months, and she could admit that that night had just been a very bad decision made by two stupid teenagers who had too much to drink. Either way, Quinn didn't want Puck, not like that. But she was going to need him now, and she knew that too.

Two days later, when she finally dragged herself back to school, Quinn had her first destination clearly in mind. But Rachel and Kurt were already there, standing outside of Mr. Schuester's classroom, waiting for her. How she let two of the biggest freaks in school convince her not to quit glee club, was beyond her understanding. But everyday she was grateful for it.

Finn refused to quit—he was there first. There was no way Puck was going to leave the two of them alone. He didn't care about Quinn like that—much—but that was his kid in there, and he couldn't allow Finn to stress her out. So rehearsals continued, bleak and uncomfortable. Oddly enough, though, their performances were more sincere, emotional, and heartfelt than any team at Regionals.

She tries not to think too hard about the day she gave birth. She tries very hard not to refer to the little girl as her daughter. It was a semi-open adoption, and she and Puck were able to approve the couple. They each wrote private letters to the girl and left them with the adoption agency. If she ever decided to seek out her biological parents, it would at least give her a place to start. Hopefully, their words would also convey how heartbreaking this decision was, even if they knew it was the best thing for her.

After the trials of her senior year, college was a breeze. Since 10th grade, Quinn had been aiming for a private Christian college just east of the border in Pennsylvania. Quinn had been terrified that they might turn her away during her admittance interview; her pregnancy could not be hidden, and in fact, Quinn didn't want to hide it. But the school embodied the ideals of Christian forgiveness that her parents only seemed to preach, and they recognized her desire to do the right thing.

So she left Lima and went to college. No one knew her here; she could be anyone she wanted to be. The thing was, Quinn didn't know who that was and she was relishing the chance to find out. So she studied. She studied long hours and late nights. Quinn didn't party; she didn't join the cheer squad. However, every Sunday she found herself singing in the church choir after blowing the director away during an audition. And she didn't once feel ashamed about it.

In the beginning of her senior year, she ran into Finn at an interleague football game. It was sudden, like in the movies when the crowd parts to reveal exactly who and what you are looking for. They had not seen each other since right before leaving for college. Their breaks were different and they were rarely in Lima at the same time. But Quinn knew, locking eyes with him, that this was not the same Finn she had dated in high school. They were both different people now.

Different, and still just as perfect for each other.

It was slow, painfully slow. But they got reacquainted and kept in touch by phone and e-mail. Quinn was pretty sure they were friends. She didn't realize until now that they had never been friends before; they were always just Finn and Quinn, star couple of McKinley High. It was very enlightening.

He surprised her at her graduation and made her cry again. She took a job in Penn Hills, near Pittsburgh. When she told him that she would not be able to take any time off for the holidays, Quinn wasn't quite able to keep the tremble from her voice. His company closed shop for Thanksgiving, and so he showed up at her hospital with two turkey sandwiches from Subway.

Quinn kissed him and it was the most heavenly second first kiss she could imagine.

Not until the end of the long weekend did he announce he was transferring to the Pittsburgh branch of his company. He would be back in early January. She wanted to know if he had requested the transfer. She wanted to know if he was happy with it. It was a sheer miracle that she stopped herself from asking. Quinn tried not to hope, but Finn smiled her and made her skin tingle. She didn't need to hope anymore—she knew.

The day Finn proposed, three years later, was the happiest Quinn had ever been in her life.


	3. Chapter 3

**Title:** Life Goes On

**Author:** msathenaxf

**Disclaimer:** Neither Glee, or any of its characters, belong to me. But I really love them and am borrowing them for my own amusement.

**Author Notes:** For the purpose of this story, I am assuming that Quinn, Finn, and Puck are all seniors in the current season. The others are either juniors or sophomores. I don't think their official grade levels have been mentioned yet.

**Puck**

Puck lost everything good from his past the day he was finally allowed to claim his future. He gained a daughter but lost Finn. Friends since eight, it ended in a flurry of fists and epithets.

It had been hard—harder than anything he had ever done—to finally agree with Quinn and sign the adoption papers. Puck knew he could take care of both of them; but he knew that their daughter deserved more than he could provide. And while it killed him, the moment he held his newborn daughter in his arms, he knew it was the right decision.

Puck stayed in Lima, to no one's surprise. However, he enrolled full-time in the local community college, and that was definitely unexpected. Unbelievably, his mother made too much money for him to qualify for financial aid, so he continued to work as much as possible. He threw himself into his studies, and worked full-time cleaning pools and, during winter, repaired houses. Things were not easy for Puck, but he was doing this for himself. He wasn't trying to impress a girl, or look cool. And that alone made the difficult experience worthwhile.

When he could, he helped Coach Tanaka for some extra money, and when there was time he would wander over to the choir room. If there were two things Puck knew, it was football and, apparently, glee club. It was actually a really unique experience to have students look up to him, not because they were scared of him, but because he had something meaningful to say. He found himself liking it.

He got to know Artie a lot better and formed an uneasy truce with Santana. And by the end of the year, Puck was only a little shocked to realize he and Rachel were friends. He showed up for their graduation and cheered loudly for all of them. Screw all the kids giving him strange looks; he was done with this place, and he could—and would—be friends with whomever he wanted.

After, he was surprised at which people he kept in touch with. Kurt stayed in Lima after high school and so did Tina. Both went to the community college and he would see them around campus. Tina tutored him in math. She told him about Rachel landing the lead in one of the state school's plays. He bought a ticket that afternoon, and sat in the third row for her opening night.

They really only ever saw each other at temple, which he did not attend nearly as much as his mother would have liked, or at McKinley when they both were there to help with glee. On the days he knew that he would see her there, Puck would bring her a slushie. Sometimes she surprised him with one of his own.

Once he had enough credits, Puck transferred to the four-year university. Because of his full work schedule, he was a year behind. The timing ended up working out well, though. He would see Rachel around campus and they met for lunch a couple times a week. That first time had been a little strange. It was actually the first time they had met up without the excuse of glee or church. Puck was pleasantly surprised to find that they still had a lot to talk about. And somewhere between rehearsal and lunch, somewhere between high school and college, somewhere between child and man, he fell completely in love with her.

He knew it was hopeless. For whatever reason, she had stayed in Lima after high school, but she would be graduating college soon. They never really talked about what would come next, but of course he knew she would be leaving this crap town. So he never said anything about his feelings, and just continued along like normal.

It was Tina who told him that Rachel wasn't planning on going anywhere after graduation. Puck had argued with her, insisting she was wrong, but Tina only laughed at him, and explained that Rachel was waiting for him. He was horrified, if a little gratified. But Puck knew that he was here for a while, at least until his sister graduated. He refused to ruin another girl's life, and being with him would do nothing but drag her down.

So he started to pull away. His work kept him from temple even more than usual. He avoided running into her on campus and cancelled their lunches. Puck did his absolute best to put distance between them. He knew he was probably hurting her, but it would be easier on both of them. One thing he could not do, though, was skip her shows, but now he always sat in the very back of the upper sections, where there was no way she could see him. And he never stuck around afterward.

One day around town, he ran into Kurt, who was glaring ahead, just daring someone to get in his way. Puck managed to keep the smile off his face at the idea of Kurt fighting anyone, but he also acknowledged that something must have really pissed the younger man off. That was when Puck learned about the freshman frat boy that had a crush on Rachel. A crush that was unrequited. A crush that required a call to campus security.

Later, in his first fight since Finn, Puck punched out a freshman that had pushed Rachel Berry against a wall, left bruises on her arm, and made her cry.

One punch was all it took, and the kid was down. Briefly, he worried about police—after all, he wasn't a juvenile anymore—but when Rachel showed up on his doorstep later, looking at him with big brown eyes and a grateful smile, he knew it was worth it.

Puck was no virgin, but he made love for the first time that night. He had not kissed her since high school, or even held her hand, but staying away from her was suddenly and completely out of the question. And to his amazement, she seemed to feel the same way.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title:** Life Goes On

**Author:** msathenaxf

**Disclaimer:** Neither Glee, or any of its characters, belong to me. But I really love them and am borrowing them for my own amusement.

**Author Notes:** For the purpose of this story, I am assuming that Quinn, Finn, and Puck are all seniors in the current season. The others are either juniors or sophomores. I don't think their official grade levels have been mentioned yet.

**Rachel**

Rachel cried the Friday she got the rejection letter from Juilliard.

By Monday, though, she did what she always did when things were hard. She woke up, went to school, plastered on a smile, and sang her heart out. Thankfully, her need to be prepared had outweighed her confidence. All but two of the other twelve schools she applied to had accepted her. She was going to be fine.

So it surprised everyone—including her—when she decided to stay in Lima and attend the satellite campus for Ohio State. Rachel got a staff job at McKinley helping Mr. Schue coach New Directions. It was in its third quality year, and he had a lot more than twelve students to work with. She landed the leads in the two musical numbers the college produced. Her grades were good and she was saving money by living at home. But everyday she wondered what on earth she was still doing there.

Eventually, she stopped thinking about it. For the first time ever, Rachel wasn't worrying about the future. Her life was here, now, in Lima, Ohio. Her family was here and so were her friends. So, she lived. Happily.

Tina set her up with a sweet boy that she dated for a little over a year. Rachel lost her virginity to him, and even though she knew she would never love him, she couldn't bring herself to regret it. She cared for him deeply, and learned a lot about herself and relationships during that time.

Her friendship with Puck had been a welcome result of staying. They would see each other during glee rehearsals, and slowly became friends. By the time he transferred to her school, she called him Noah. He still called her Berry, but it was more of a nickname now, rather than a way to depersonalize her.

Puck brought her flowers after the opening night of her first play. He didn't tell her that he sat in the twentieth row for most performances after that. She didn't tell him that she looked for him in the audience every time. It was just one of those things.

As the end of college drew near, she told Tina that she was thinking of staying in Ohio. Her plan had always been to get her degree and head to New York. Yet Rachel knew this was the right decision, knew it with every fiber of her being. What she didn't know was why.

Closing night of her final spring musical was difficult. It was sad, knowing she was done with this theatre, with the stuffy green room and moth-eaten curtains. Even harder was not seeing Noah in the audience for her final performance. She didn't know why she would suspect anything else, though; he was obviously done with her. Their friendship was nearly non-existent now and Rachel didn't know why.

Her head was not in a good place that night; it was the only reason she could think of for why she never noticed the man following her, or why she didn't think to scream when he grabbed her. But she was crying, and thankfully another girl walking by noticed. Rachel watched her approach and wished she would stop. Even with two of them, her attacker was too big to fight. Instead, the girl whipped out her cell phone.

Kurt called the next day; she was asleep, so Daddy told him what happened. When Kurt showed up later to tell her that someone—rumored to have black hair and dreamboat green eyes—had punched out her attacker, Rachel was out the door in seconds.

Now she knew why she needed to stay in Ohio.

It was the beginning of a beautiful change in an already special relationship. She never wanted anyone but Noah again. One of her theatre friends pointed out that high school sweethearts never made it, and Rachel couldn't help but laugh.

They were anything but high school sweethearts; Tina smiled and said they were soul mates. It was a nice thought. Rachel had more confidence in her relationship with Noah than she ever had with anyone else. Their relationship began in high school, but it grew with time. They began as enemies, became acquaintances, grew into adults while becoming friends, and then finally fell in love. She felt it was a pretty solid foundation.

Until the night he tried to leave her.

It was shortly after graduation. Rachel had two interviews and met Puck at his house after. His mother and sister were at dinner, a reward for a successful eighth grade year. Rachel found Noah in his kitchen, looking at a picture tacked on the fridge. It was his sister at her end of year recital for band. Before she could even put her arms around him he stopped her cold by saying it was over.

Tears flowed down her cheeks silently; Noah wouldn't even turn to look at her. Rachel was calm, however, while he explained his reasoning. He couldn't leave Lima yet. And she could do so much more with her life if she left. All he would do was ruin her chances at becoming a star. She deserved more than he could give her. She was so much more talented than this place. He was damaged goods and…. Rachel stopped listening.

Whipping him around, she kissed him hard, her tears making it salty. She pulled back violently. What was wrong, she wanted to know, with loving a man who owned his own business? Years ago, she wanted to be a star because it meant she could sing and people would love her. Now, she could sing anytime and anywhere, and she didn't need people to love her, because his love was enough. It was all she wanted.

Why on earth would she want to be anywhere but right here, in Lima, with him?

She kissed him again, silently begging him not to do this. Rachel sighed into his mouth when she felt his arms wrap around her tightly. He pulled away and she saw that he was crying, too. Rachel led him upstairs, and they didn't speak for the rest of the night. In the morning, Puck informed her that she was going to marry him.

Rachel laughed, and agreed, loving that it wasn't a question.


End file.
